Data ownership issues cloud state’s scheme for skills development

A state e-governance officer said the department has no control over data-related agreements other departments get into with private players.

BENGALURU: A year after entering into an agreement with software company Mindtree Ltd for implementing its ambitious Kaushalya Karnataka skill-development programme, the State government has decided not to renew the partnership citing data privacy as a main concern.

In an election year when the Skill Development, Entrepreneurship and Livelihood Department was under pressure to implement the scheme to train and provide employment to a large number of unemployed youth, the department signed a one-year agreement with Mindtree in October 2017.

Mindtree’s social inclusion platform, I Got Skills, was given the task of conducting tele-counselling, face-to-face interviews, matching candidates with trainers, and shortlisting candidates.

To facilitate this, the State had to share the data of around 895,000 aspirants that it had collected over a period of six months with the partnering organisation. While the department did collect a lot of information about candidates during the registration, it shared partial details with Mindtree, which included candidates’ names, phone numbers, qualifications and preferences.

Though the agreement did impose terms and conditions on the partner to restrict the use of data and not allow its use for commercial gains or other purposes, department officials were later not convinced with the arrangement.

“Since the data is sensitive and we had shared it with the third party, we felt that the arrangement gave room for doubts. We are not saying that Mindtree has misused or would misappropriate the data, but such arrangements do give scope for commercial exploitation of the data,” a senior officer with the Skill Development Department told ET.

Another concern was that the agreement allowed the project partner to outsource information for tele-counselling. “During the initial conversations itself with the department, we pointed out that the tele-counselling process would be outsourced to respective expert agencies,” said Abhishek Johri, head of partnerships–I Got Skills, at Mindtree.

A State e-Governance officer said the department has no control over data-related agreements that other departments enter into with private players. “But generally, when such agreements are signed, data will reside in the department’s server and the project partner is given access to the data,” the officer said.

The e-Governance department is working on a policy that would deal with how data-related agreements should be framed, he said.

Mindtree said it handed over all the data ownership to the Skill Development Department last month.

“Mindtree employs best-in-class data security processes to ensure that all the information is well-protected. We do frequent assessments of our security protocols and ensure that there is no scope for misappropriation,” Johri said.

However, the Skill Development Department said it has not renewed its association with Mindtree and would develop an in-house system to filter candidates.

“Mindtree has cleaned the data and helped us in the process,” said Skill Development Secretary Amlan Aditya Biswas. “As far as data issues are concerned, we can file a case against them for breach of trust if at all any instance of data breach comes to light.”